Monday, July 3, 2000

12:40 a.m. Today was one of those weird hybrid days -- you couldn't help but feel it, no matter which side of the great divide you found yourself on. Was it a vacation day? The third in a series of glorious summer kick-back lounge chairs? Or was it a work day? Button-up, button-down, stiff upper lip and sore lower back?

You be the judge. I did a little of each, profoundly aware that I could have been doing the other thing. I registered a new domain and I played with my ribbons. I swept up some email and I arranged a hanging plant in a macramé -- yes! A macramé! hanger. It's the '70s all over again.

Lucky for the organized side of my life, I've maintained a small macramé collection for just such an occasion. It's in the same box as my rope-ish collection, next to my stiff-string collection, on top of my thick-thread collection. Nearby is my rope and tassel collections. Plus yarn, sewing silks ... can you see?

Ironically, I have all these collection precisely because I have been know to avoid my writing projects. But that was the old me, the me from the past. The new me, the here-and-now me ... that me writes up a storm. It's not a very organized storm yet, but it will be, one day. I'm incapable of not designating, prioritizing, codifying.

Chaos pays me no unexpected dividends. I get all my benefits from organization.

Now tomorrow -- that's a bona fide play day. I have no conflict. We will be going to not one, but two! Two glorious parties. We might see fireworks.

2:27 a.m. I went off on a little reading tangent. I actually read for a living. I read online journals for fun. I was just having some fun. And speaking of reading online journals, I am going to be reading a whole lot of them in a few weeks' time, once the nominating phase of this quarter's Diarist.net Awards is over.

If you keep an online journal, you owe it to ... well, the greater community to nominate your favorites. I've listened to the wise Mo of the newly renamed Anyone's Any, (formerly Blue and Green), and now I, too, have a folder in my bookmarks for urls of entries that I admire. Then, when I get to the Awards fill-in-the-blanks screen, it's not that hard to just cut and paste, cut and paste ... and maybe spread a little joy. Voting closes on the 15th, so start now and you, too, can feel righteous and cool.

3:11 a.m. People in my neighborhood have actually put out their garbage bins this evening, too afraid that the garbage men may come on the Fourth of July, oh yea of little faith. People are such sheep. On the other hand, if they come and we were stupid enough to doubt them, then we will have an overflowing bin. So, baaaa. Ours are out there, too.